2013 WSOPE Event #2 Won By Henrik Johansson

Friday, October 18th, 2013 by Ryan

It’s always nice to see a player come out of the woodworks and grab a big time win in a poker tournament, especially in a big series like the World Series of Poker or World Series of Poker Europe. We saw this happen just recently when a player who hadn’t played in many live tournaments to this point in his career was able to grab a win at the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe, in Event #2. The event that the 21 year old from Sweden, Henrik Johansson was able to take down was the €1,100 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry tournament, and he was able to pull in a nice pay day of €129,700 for this impressive run through a strong field. What makes this tournament win even more impressive for Johansson is that it really came out of nowhere, as he had just had a few live tournament cashes throughout his career to this point over a few years. He’s played the high stakes games in online poker for a good while though, so he definitely is used to play against strong competition consistently.

When the final table began of this event, we saw Johansson at the top of the leaderboard with 587,000 chips, but obviously he was going to have some work to do when Day 3 began to take down this title. Behind Johansson in the rankings we saw Daniel Weinman in second place with 408,000 chips, and Daniel Laidlaw with 357,000 chips, and these were the two closest players within striking distance of the young Swede. After that, no one else at the table had more than 155,000 chips to play with, and in one of the fastest final tables that I can remember, we saw a champion crowned in only 91 total hands.

The day featured some big hands obviously, and a whole lot of quick all-in action also. The biggest hand though was probably the one that set us up with our heads up match. In this hand we saw Johansson raise the action up to start to 27,000, and then Yaniv Botbol call. Botbol then checked to Johansson on the 2-6-Q flop, and called Johansson’s 31,000 chip bet. Botbol checked yet again on the turn of a 4s, and Johansson bet again, this time for 78,000 chips. Botbol shoved all-in at this point for around 400,000, and Johansson called and was in need of some help. Botbol showed a set of Fours against the pocket Kings of Johansson. Shockingly, a King came ont he river though, and this gave Johansson the pot, and also sent his opponent home in third place as well to set up our heads up match.

While winning the hand was obviously great as it set up heads up action, but it also gave Johansson a nice lead going into the heads up match against Adriano Torre-Grossa. He started out with a chip lead of 1,229,000 chips to 752,000 chips. The two went back and forth for a while, but the match didn’t last nearly as long as many anticipated that it would. In total we saw just 22 hands of heads up play (which shows you how short the rest of the final table actually was). On the final hand of the action, Johansson bet 35,000 to start it out, and Torre-Gross called. The flop came out with 9-10-7 rainbow, and Torre-Gross then check-raised all-in for his remaining 380,000 chips. Johansson called right away, and turned over 10-9 for top two pair. Torre-Gross showed 7-6 for bottom pair and a straight draw. The turn and river were both Aces and this gave the championship and gold bracelet to Johansson. For second place, Torre-Gross took home €80,250.

There is still quite a bit of action to be played at the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe, and with the November Nine just around the corner, we are going to keep our eyes locked in on the final few events in Europe before moving the coverage back over to Las Vegas to see who takes down the $8+ million prize at the Main Event. Until then, there is still a ton of money to be won in Europe, and some big named players who are going to be pushing to win a gold bracelet or two.